2. Some History¶
Core Argument¶
The Spanish invasion of Cuba in the early sixteenth century drove the indigenous population to near extinction, establishing a pattern of colonial exploitation that would persist for centuries. Spain maintained tight control until the American Revolutionary War, when it temporarily lifted trade restrictions, sparking a sugar boom. After the colonists' victory, Spain reimposed tariffs, generating deep resentment among merchants. The 1791 Haitian slave revolt, inspired by the French Revolution, led to Haiti's independence in 1804, and some 30,000 French refugees fled to Cuba, introducing efficient sugar and tobacco production that transformed the economy into agribusiness reliant on slave labour. By the mid-1800s, slaves comprised forty-five per cent of the population.
After Spain's ejection from mainland Latin America in 1824, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine and took interest in Cuba, fearing slave rebellions. In 1843, Carlota led a major slave uprising at the Triumvirato sugar mill; the US offered aid to Spain to crush it. By the mid-nineteenth century, the US was Cuba's largest trading partner and made three offers to buy Cuba, all refused by Spain. In 1867, Spain imposed new taxes, provoking the first War of Independence in 1868, led by Carlos de Céspedes, who declared independence, freed his slaves, and called for universal suffrage and emancipation. The Ten-Year War ended in 1878 with the Treaty of Zanjón, granting neither independence nor emancipation. By the 1880s, slavery was de facto ended as sugar production was reorganised around wage labour, worsening conditions for former slaves. By 1894, most sugar mills were US-owned, over ninety per cent of Cuban sugar exports went to the US, and Cuba was reduced to a single-crop economy with a single customer.
José Martí formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party and launched a second war of independence in 1895, but was killed at Dos Ríos. Women, including poor black mambisas, fought as soldiers, nurses, and couriers. The US, having ensured mutual exhaustion, intervened in 1898 after the USS Maine explosion, defeating Spain and occupying Cuba. The 1901 Platt Amendment, forced into the Cuban constitution, granted the US the right to intervene. US domination continued for sixty years through four military interventions (1906–1909, 1912, 1917–1920, 1933), each installing a favoured government. By 1905 nearly two-thirds of rural properties were American-owned; fewer than 0.1% of farms occupied 20% of land while 40% of farms occupied only 4%. The Magoon administration (1906–1909) reversed gains from the independence struggle, demobilising the Liberation Army and dismantling institutions that had advanced Afro-Cuban rights. In response, the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC) was founded in 1908, but faced repression through the 1909 Morúa Law banning race- or class-based parties. After a peaceful 1912 demonstration, bourgeois newspapers falsely reported a race war, white vigilante groups massacred Afro-Cubans with impunity, and the PIC was destroyed. The ban on importing black workers was then lifted; United Fruit brought in cheaper Jamaican labour. Between 1912 and 1931, over 250,000 black Caribbean workers arrived. Unemployment stood at 25% in good years, 50% in bad; rural illiteracy exceeded 90%. World War I brought temporary sugar prosperity and strikes for an eight-hour day; US marines broke the strikes. After the war, the sugar industry collapsed, US banks filled the resulting vacuum, and the Cuban bourgeoisie was confined to areas not dominated by US industry. In 1921, US Major-General Crowder rewrote Cuba's election laws aboard the battleship Minnesota; Alfredo Zayas ran unopposed. Formal independence and democracy were largely fictitious; corruption was rampant. In 1924, Crowder selected Gerardo Machado as president. Student protests under Julio Antonio Mella won university reforms in 1922–23, but the FEU was banned in 1924. Mella evolved toward revolutionary socialism, co-founding the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in 1925. Machado became a brutal dictator